


Dreamland

by KindListener



Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game), I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:47:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23401735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KindListener/pseuds/KindListener
Summary: Anything can be possible to those who have the knowledge and the talent to sculpt the world by man’s own hubris.
Kudos: 11





	Dreamland

It was all a dream.

Probably from talking to that strange intellectual that kept turning up at the same parties that Ted did. Intellectuals; one, big sham of a people, pretending to know what’s happening when, in reality, they haven’t a clue. If the decades — or, indeed, mere hours — in AM’s freezing cold, torturous belly did anything, it taught Ted that anything could be possible to they who have the knowledge and the talent to sculpt the world by man’s own hubris. What a joke.

A slow morning. A morning with sunshine, like guiding lights, through the blinds. A morning with blue skies and white clouds and yellow sun. A morning that he hasn’t seen in, what he thought was, over a century. A morning.

Ted glances down, holds up his arms and legs, studying every inch of skin for some form of sign. A hint that this is some trick of AM’s doing. Nothing but pale, smooth flesh, like he used to have.

"Good morning, Ted."

His dark eyes widen as they dart about, wildly. His hands clutch at the bed sheets, pulling them up to his mouth like a frightened child.  
"Go... Go away!" A hand grasps Ted’s arm, firmly, and he freezes, looks beside him. A gorgeous brunette with eyes like sapphires and skin like polished ivory; a woman.  
"Ted, darling, are you alright?" Her hair is, ever so slightly, mussed and her eyes still lidded from sleep. He takes a moment to catch his breath. A woman, a real woman. Nothing like that sad, used-up whore of a woman. Nothing like Ellen. A real, human woman, with skin like silk and a voice like a sonata and breasts like— God, he’s missed this. Or...has he?

"Were you having that nightmare, again?" She asks, melodically, and Ted nods, automatically. She presses a palm to his sternum, where it feels like his heart is going to give out, and helps him lay down. That nightmare. Was this— _Is_ this normal for him? How long has he been dreaming that the world ended? How many times a night has he suffered decades of torture? "Poor dear." Her rouged lips curled into a small smile and Ted looks her up and down as she leans over him. Long, brunette hair tumbles over her shoulders. Her blue eyes, deeper than the blue of the sea, are kind and smiling, warmly. Her touch— Her touch. Her touch feels like a million feathers stroking him at once, as if he’s fallen into a bed of soft velvet sheets, as if he’s dreaming, again. Still, a question lingers on Ted’s lips, pulling at his grey matter, tugging at his brain.  
"Who are you?" He asks and she looks shocked for a moment.  
"You must’ve gotten pretty wasted, last night. You hit your head pretty hard." She giggles before she runs her perfectly manicured fingers through Ted’s sweat-drenched hair. A crimson shadow looms in the corner of the room, watching them, listening. Ted eyes it, cautiously, before the caution turns to paranoia turns to fear. The fear only AM could enstill.  
"What is— What is that? The red—" He can feel his windpipe closing off, panic claiming him. He, wildly, points in the general direction of the shadow, legs spasming against the cotton bedsheets as he attempts to scramble away.  
"Ted, darling! Listen, it’s my dressing gown! Please, calm down." She explains and Ted squints, seeing the cord used to tie it in place.  
"O-Oh. I see." Her voice soothes him as he falls back down, beside her.

_Was Benny ever real? How about Nimdok? Or Gorrister? Even Ellen? All nightmares, Ted? You were sane but how about now._

He tenses under her feather-soft touch at the thought of AM’s voice and his biting humour.  
"Ted, look at me. You’re safe, now." Her lips, like two blossoming roses, claim his own and he runs clammy, shaking palms over her smooth, silky body as she straddles his hips. "You’re with me, now. You don’t have to be afraid." Her voice is welcome respite from AM’s haunting presence. But AM...isn’t...real, is he? Is this, really, what his room looked like? Yes...yes! And this is...oh, God, what’s her name? "Ted, say my name."

_Very good, Ted. What was the name of this whore you used to make you feel like you were worth something? She must’ve been mad to love you. Or maybe she was just terrified of being alone._

"... Alice."

... Alice.

"Alice." The name rolls off Ted’s tongue like a melting chocolate. Alice. The name suits her. Arms thrown over his shoulders and she rolls them over, her legs curl around his pelvis. He can feel his thickening cock rub between the swollen lips of her wet, slick core.

_What you wouldn’t give to be inside her, Ted. What you would give to be buried, deep, inside her fat, wet cunt. Indulge yourself. It’s been too long since you did._

AM’s voice echoes in his brain and he nods, burying his mouth in the nape of her neck. AM may have imprinted himself on Ted’s impressionable brain but he didn’t — doesn’t — exist. He buries his cock into her and she squeals with delight, fingers passing through his hair, softly, fluffing it as he kisses her, all tongue and teeth. The softness of her. The rawness of her naked flesh. His fingers sink into the soft skin of her hips, holding her in place as he makes love to her.  
"Oh, darling, my blessed Ted! Yes! Love me!" She yells to the heavens and Ted doesn’t last long. Her body is warm and inviting and her flesh is so tender and soft. His tension is released from him in a long, drawn-out groan of relief. He releases himself into her gorgeous body, her frame going limp as she closes her eyes and sighs, blissfully.

_Ted...? Ted? You didn’t forget about me, did you, Ted?_

Ted flinches, untangling his sweaty limbs from Alice’s to look around.  
"You’re not real, you bastard! Get out of my head!" He screams to the sky but the world grows cold and he shivers. A draught sways in from between the blinds so Ted goes to close the window. The window... Oh, God... Miles and miles of plated steel cover every surface out of the windows. Kilometres of cable extend far beyond the eye can see. Ted can feel tears in his eyes as a laugh echoes down the empty corridors of AM’s huge, cavernous bowels.  
"But you can’t! You—"

_Oh, but I have, Ted._

The window ledge is nothing but a hallucination, so is the room and the bed and... Under a few sheets of steel, Ted searches for the girl’s sleeping form. She shouldn’t be there but— No. No, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. There, amongst the sheet metal and the wiring that litters the ground, Benny’s maggot-ridden corpse, every orrifice filled, with Ted’s sperm spilling from them. His eyeballs have far since been eaten but the shape of his gorilla-like face is still only so recognisable. The hole below his ribs has been filled with a pus-swollen tumour. A section of discoloured flesh has been torn from his bones, leaving behind an unsightly gnaw mark. Ted empties the bloody, fleshy contents of his stomach into the floor, dry heaving against the metal. A laugh bounces from every surface and shakes Ted until his ears begin to bleed.

_Every man has needs, Ted. You do what you must to fulfil them._


End file.
